Virtual Goods Offers: Trust & Reputation

From CFPWiki

This panel will outline the importance of offers as a monetization tool in the emerging virtual good market and what steps can be taken to create a unified, consistent, and comprehensive trust platform that will encourage growth & profitability for industry players and at the same time protect consumers and businesses participating in these offers.

Detailed Description

Virtual goods have grown into a multi-billion dollar global market in just a few years and have become a critical part of content monetization; Piper Jaffray predicts that the US market for virtual goods will top $2.5 billion by 2013. Incentivized advertiser offers are becoming an increasingly important tool in monetizing virtual goods in gaming and social media environments.

As with any fast moving market, virtual goods offers have faced growing pains especially in the areas of trust and reputation. Over the last 12 months the industry has had to react to consumer complaints about deceptive and even fraudulent offers that steal user info or surreptitiously charge consumers for unwanted products. A patchwork of enforcement efforts & new guidelines have been issued by Facebook, game publishers (such as Zynga), and offer providers to combat these trust issues. However, there is still no unified set of standards to guard consumer safety while at the same time ensuring that this fast growing industry can continue to scale. Also, an avalanche of new product innovations from these companies such as mobile offer environments will likely surface even more trust and consumer protection issues in the coming months and years.

This panel will outline the importance of offers as a monetization tool in the emerging virtual good market and what steps can be taken to create a unified, consistent, and comprehensive trust platform that will encourage growth & profitability for industry players and at the same time protect consumers and businesses participating in these offers.